FutureTech

Kaleidofin, a fintech startup based in Chennai that provides financial services to underserved customers in the informal economy, has raised $10 million (roughly Rs 74 crore) in a new funding round led by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The Series B round was also attended by existing institutional investors Oiko Credit, Flourish Ventures, Omidyar Network, Blume Ventures, and Bharat Fund. Kaleifofin, which has so far raised $18 million in funding, intends to use the funds for technology development, risk management, and bolstering its data science capabilities. IFMR Group, a…

Curefoods has raised $62 million in funding from Iron Pillar, Chiratae Ventures, Sixteenth Street Capital, Accel Partners, and Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, amid a significant increase in demand for cloud kitchens and online-only restaurants. Curefoods is run by Ankit Nagori, a former Flipkart executive who branched out from Curefit, which he co-founded with Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal. By acquiring, incubating, and licencing other food brands, the company hopes to create a multi-brand, Thrasio-like play. It already has 20 brands under its umbrella, 15 of which are fully acquired. “If you…

FPL Technologies, a Pune-based fintech startup, has raised $75 million in a Series C funding round led by its existing investor QED Investors, with participation from Janchor Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners, and Hummingbird Ventures. The new equity was raised at a post-money valuation of $750 million.The latest round of funding comes just ten months after FPL Technologies raised $35 million in Series B funding. The latest round of investment (Series C funding round) brings the company’s total funding to around $125 million since its inception. FPL Technologies intends…

Refyne, a platform that allows employees to draw their salaries on demand, announced a new funding round of $82 million led by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global. Existing investors such as QED Investors, DST Global partners, Jigsaw VC, XYZ Capital, and RTP Global participated in the financing. According to the company, Digital Horizon is a new investor who has joined the team. Earned Wage Access (EWA), also known as on-demand pay, allows employees to access a portion of their accumulated wages before payday, with the remainder paid on the…

WhatsApp is working on a few intriguing updates. The most recent feature found in the messaging app has a lot to do with voice notes. WhatsApp users will soon be able to listen to voice notes even after the chat window has been closed. The current set up allows users to listen to voice notes as long as the chat window is open. When you close the chat window, the voice note is also interrupted. However, things may change in a later update. According to Wabetanino, a new feature that…

India’s largest EdTech startups, including Byju’s, Unacademy, upGrad, and Vedantu, stated that they will adopt a self-regulatory code and adhere to a “common code of conduct in a letter to the union ministry of education on Monday. This initiative by a group of fifteen companies—which has formed an autonomous body called the ‘India EdTech Consortium’ under the auspices of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)—comes at a time when the threat of regulatory oversight looms large over the fast-growing sector. Dharmendra Pradhan, the union education minister, stated last…

Eduncle, a Kota-based online learning platform, has raised $750,000 (Rs 5.54 crore) in a funding round to meet its expansion goals, develop new products for additional exams, begin live classes, and strengthen its tech infrastructure. The round was led by Mumbai Angels Network, ah! Ventures, KareKaBa Ventures, and others. Eduncle intends to use this funding to improve its doubt-resolving capabilities by incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning. Eduncle, founded in 2016 by Arpit Pareek and Amit Pareek, has created an online learning platform that provides end-to-end test preparation and guidance…

Glamplus, a Bengaluru-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) enabled marketplace, has raised $700,000 (Rs 5.17 crore) in a new funding round to scale its B2B business partners to 10,000 and reach Rs 5 crore in monthly revenue by March 2022. The new pre-Series A round was led by Blume Ventures, Ramakant Sharma (COO- Livspace), and Inflection Point Ventures (IPV). Glamplus assists and empowers large, medium, and small salons and spas to adopt technology and grow their businesses digitally. Founded in July 2020 by Vatsalya Agarwal, Divyanshu Singh, and Rohan Singh, the startup has…

Tata Group-owned etailer BigBasket has started testing a group buying model for delivering groceries in Tier IV towns in the face of increasing competition in the category according to people briefed on the matter. BigBasket’s decision to experiment with community buying, also known as social commerce, comes at a time when companies are experimenting with new ways to expand their grocery and essentials verticals in response to an increase in demand for these categories online. With this, the Bengaluru-based online grocer will join a growing list of ecommerce firms, including…

CoutLoot, India’s largest offline-to-online social commerce platform, has launched a video commerce feature that allows small sellers to engage with potential buyers via short online videos. According to the company, which was built along the lines of Taobao, creator economy-led revenue streams could see a massive increase and improve the social experience of both sellers and buyers. Over 6.5 lakh sellers can use the app’s new video commerce plugin format to post a video describing their products and store. The video storey will be entirely made up of user-generated content…